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Understanding UK Evangelicals - Who are they?

Understanding UK Evangelicals

Who are they?

12.3 million

people in the UK hold evangelical beliefs OR identify as evangelical (or both). This report presents the findings of a landmark survey that sought to measure the size, shape and identity of the evangelical population across the United Kingdom.

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Most practising Christians in the UK are evangelicals and evangelical Christianity is growing. Evangelicals are younger, more ethnically diverse, and more likely to be male than the wider population.

Five groups within UK evangelicalism

This report maps out the evangelical landscape using two key measures — identity and belief. From this we identified five groups within the broader evangelical population, from those who simply identify with the label to those who hold the tightest combination of evangelical identity, belief, and Protestant church tradition.

TapClick a region of the diagram, or a group in the list below, to explore it

Belief Identity Belief only 4.3m Name only 2.5m Broad Classic 2.6m

of the UK

At a time of widely reported decline in religion, the statistics tell a different story

There are approximately
2.6 million
Classic Evangelicals in the UK. This is based on the 3.8% of respondents who strongly hold evangelical beliefs AND identify as an evangelical AND are part of Protestant traditions.
1 in 3
of those who strongly agree with evangelical beliefs are from an ethnic minority background.
There are approximately
5.5 million
Broad Evangelicals in the UK. This is based on the 7.9% of respondents who hold evangelical beliefs AND identify as an evangelical.
7.2%
of respondents are practising Christians – attending church at least monthly and praying and reading the Bible at least weekly.
17.6%
of UK adults are Somewhat Evangelical. This is based on respondents who hold evangelical beliefs OR identify as an evangelical.
64%
of practising Christians are Broad Evangelicals.
Adults under 35
are most likely to identify as evangelicals and hold evangelical beliefs.
12%
of UK adults attend church at least once a month.

“The movement originating in the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century did much to shape the United Kingdom in the following two centuries. Now in the twenty-first century it is clear from the statistics in this report that Evangelicals of various types continue to form a significant proportion of the British population – and are growing.”

David Bebbington
Emeritus Professor of History, University of Stirling

Three ways the Evangelical Alliance is here for you

Discover more about the Evangelical Alliance and see what we’re working on at the moment.

1

Speaking up on the issues facing UK Christians

Find out more
2

Sharing the trends shaping mission and ministry today

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3

Producing practical resources you can use in your church

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Methodology

Whitestone Insight conducted an online survey using a nationally representative group of 8,407 adults. The fieldwork took place between 25 February and 8 March 2026. The data provided has a margin of error of 2%, meaning that all percentages can realistically be 2% higher or lower than presented in this report.

This survey sampled UK adults, and all underlying percentages are calculated on that adult sample. However, to give a clearer sense of scale, this report applies those percentages to the total UK population of approximately 70 million – rather than to the adult population alone – whenever it states a number of people.

8,407
UK adults surveyed online
3,804
people who categorised themselves as Christian, asked further questions
±2%
margin of error on all figures
Feb–Mar
2026
fieldwork period

Read the full report

To find out more about the Evangelical Alliance’s research, visit eauk.org/research.

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